


A Sensitive Subject

by aspookycryptidsock



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Nipple Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-24 22:56:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16184936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aspookycryptidsock/pseuds/aspookycryptidsock
Summary: "Hey ghosts, tousle my hair, gimme a little purple nurple or something. Let's have some fun!" - Shane Madej, 2016(Working title: nip nops.txt)





	A Sensitive Subject

"Fuckin- _purple nurple_ ," Ryan's laughing so hard that he's going to have to cut most of it out in the edit. They're squeezed together in the V.O. booth reviewing the footage, and Ryan can hardly breathe. "I mean, look, man, I'm not here to kink shame, good for you, but I think you might be looking for nipple play in all the wrong places here."

"Yeah?" Shane asks, smirking down at him. "Because ghosts aren't real?"

"Because they're not corporeal," Ryan says, interrupting himself to laugh again at the mental image. "Just picture it, you, laid out on a bed, candles all around, a ghost's fingers sadly phasing through your nipples." He reaches over and flicks Shane in the chest, nipple adjacent, and then breaks down again, full-on gasping for breath and doubling over with it, bracing himself on Shane's shoulder.

Shane's very stiff shoulder. Shane's very stiff, not at all engaged-in-mutual-laughing shoulder. Huh, that's- that's a little strange. Shane's usually first in line to take a bit and run with it, and Ryan briefly considers changing tactics and going for a joke about Shane's third nipple, but maybe that's the problem in the first place. Maybe Shane has weird nipple insecurity. He's been shirtless on camera before, so it would have to be a recent development. Maybe he's had some sort of recent nipple-related trauma and Ryan's being a real asshole here, maybe-

"You okay there, Ryan?" Shane asks, his voice sounding strained. "Get distracted by your smutty fantasies about me and ghosts?"

"You wish," Ryan says, snatching his hand back from Shane's shoulder so quickly he almost hits the mic. It's kind of a cop-out, but at least the awkwardness from before isn't quite as intense now. Ryan takes the out and turns the page on his notes, clearing his throat and trying to ignore it as Shane fidgets next to him.

"Disturbing though the thought may be, Shane's nipples would be the least of the horrors we would encounter that night…"

-

Ryan hadn't expected to spend this much time considering the mysteries of Shane's nipples. He hadn't expected to spend _any_ time considering Shane's nipples so intently, not even at his drunkest and most bicurious. They were just there. They were, in fact, one of the last things Ryan would have expected to end up fixated on. He's not blind, he can see Shane's appeal. He has at times been jealous of his hair and every now and then momentarily distracted by his hands but mostly only when Shane puts them on him, and that isn’t his fault. 

There’s just so _much_ of him, and it’s easier to focus on the obvious and make fun of Shane's flailing limbs and general noodley vibe than think too much about the times when it all comes together in a really distracting way. They spend a lot of time together, it would be weirder if he hadn't given it a passing thought, or at least that's what he's been telling himself for a while now.

This, though. This was different, and weird, and it’s not even really his fault. Shane’s the one who brought it up. He'd seemed perfectly fine making the joke, it was just later on that he bristled. It would have been fine if he hadn't gotten so weird about it, but even putting aside this whole recent, unfortunate and vaguely formed crush situation he's found himself in, Shane's still his best friend. He doesn't want to leave something in the edit that's going to make anything weird for Shane, he's just really not looking forward to broaching the topic.

So, as he often does, Ryan thinks of the most likely reasons Shane could be upset about this, the best way to tackle the issue head on, and he gathers his resolve and he makes a mistake.

-

"Not that I don't appreciate it, but why the sudden urge to get me tipsy and butter me up with pizza and Edge of Tomorrow?" Shane's stretched out on Ryan's couch, one hand on his stomach and the other lazily holding a bottle of beer as Tom Cruise dies for the 12th or so time. Ryan's so busy watching Shane's fingers idly tap against the neck of the bottle that it takes him a second to process the question.

Shane's been getting progressively more relaxed as the night goes on, and Ryan has been getting progressively more keyed up. It's not that he doesn’t realize it’s weird that he's spent almost an entire week thinking of nothing but Shane's nipples every time he looks at him. It passed weird the first day in the booth, flew past awkward two days ago, and now he is firmly entrenched in crazy town and staring at Shane's chest where his shirt stretches over it.

"Ryan? You okay, man?" 

Shane sits up and gives Ryan one of the genuinely concerned, kind looks he gives him sometimes when Ryan's particularly convinced he's about to fucking die. It always calms him down. Usually this is a good thing, but tonight is a very, very bad thing because it calms him down just enough to say, "I need you tell me if a ghost touched your nipples."

"Um." It's maybe the most taken aback Ryan has ever seen Shane, and he can't even enjoy being the cause of it because his words finally register in his own stupid brain and oh. Oh, no.

"Or if anyone touched your nipples?" He's still talking, he's still talking and he's not making it better and Shane still just looks so truly confused, which is not helping matters.

"Like, ever?" Shane asks, tilting his head like he's seriously trying to come up with a numbered list.

"No, at fucking. At the Winchester House. You made the joke, about ghosts twisting your nipples, and then you got weird in the booth and then _I_ got weird in the booth and then I got so, so fucking weird out of the booth, dude, you have no idea, and I just. I need to know, man. I need to know why I can't stop thinking about your nipples." 

On the plus side, once he dies from pure and devastating mortification, he'll finally find out if ghosts are real.

"I gotta tell you, this is not how I pictured my night going. You maybe want to take another pass at that?" Shane asks. It's not unkind, but he's definitely got an eyebrow raised and he's smirking and Ryan should have just put the stupid joke in. This is what he gets for being a good friend.

"No," Ryan says truthfully. "I want to sit and wait for the demon that followed me home to offer me a deal for my soul. He's going to offer to erase this from your memory and I'm gonna take that deal so fucking quick, dude. So quick your stupid nipples are gonna fly right off your chest."

"I'm very lost," Shane says. 

"Fucking- look, in the booth, the other day? I said the thing about ghosts twisting your nipples which is hilarious and which I want to keep in the episode, but then you got really weird about it? You got all stiff and quiet, and I want to put it in but not if you have some kind of secret nipple shame or something. I'm being a good friend, you asshole." Ryan blurts it out so fast that he's almost panting by the end of it, and Shane looks no less confused.

"Nipple shame?"

"Shame? Trauma? Nipple weirdness in general? I just want to know what's up so I can stop thinking about your fucking nipples," Ryan groans. 

"I don't. I don't have nipple shame, or nipple trauma," Shane says slowly, like Ryan is some frightened and nipple obsessed animal he's trying to calm. It's not that far off, actually.

"You don't?"

"Nope," Shane says. "No nipple shame here. No nipple trauma. No need to show you on a doll where a ghost touched me."

"Then why'd you get so weird?" Ryan asks. "C'mon, man, I've been driving myself crazy for a week now-"

"Not my fault."

"Do you have any idea how much I've thought about your fucking nipples?"

"Again, no possible way I could know this."

"I was so worried about upsetting you, you at least owe me this," Ryan finishes, raising his voice to talk over Shane's objections. "Look, I came up with some seriously wild scenarios to explain this in my head, nothing you can tell me is going to surprise me."

"Yeah?" Shane asks, eyes lighting up, and oh no. Ryan's made a mistake. "Break out this list, baby, let's have ourselves a good old fashioned guessing game! I promise I'll tell you if you're right."

"...Promise?" Ryan asks. He wants an answer one way or another, and he's entertained Shane with worse for less of a reason.

"Pinky promise," Shane says solemnly, holding his out and waggling it at Ryan in invitation. 

"Fine," Ryan sighs, linking his pinky finger with Shane’s and giving a firm shake. "I know this is the obvious one, but I'm getting it out of the way. Theory one, a ghost touched your nipples and you've been thrown into a deep and spiraling crisis that challenges the very core of your belief system."

"Nope."

"Theory two, you saw those tweets about your third nipple and fell victim to the insidious dehumanization of body shaming and are now ashamed of your nipples."

"It's a mole, and no."

"Technically any mole that's on the torso is a supernumerary nipple," Ryan says, mostly to piss Shane off.

"How do you know so much about some stuff and so little about other stuff?" Shane asks, taking a pull from his beer. "Supernumerary nipple," he mutters, mostly to himself. Ryan very pointedly does not share the fact that he’s been researching the human nipple at all hours of the night with Shane.

"Theory three, you suffered some form of nipple-related trauma," Ryan says, ignoring him. "The trauma suffered swings wildly between the mundane and completely insane."

"Oh, I'm gonna need examples on this one," Shane says, and yeah. Ryan’s expecting that.

"You know, the normal stuff. You accidentally cut it off juggling knives. You accidentally burned it off cooking."

"Sure, sure, both totally normal, everyday occurrences."

"Then there's the really out there stuff, like maybe a fan broke in and cut it off while you slept to make a necklace or a skin lamp or something. Or also maybe it was aliens."

"Aliens took my nipple?" Shane asks.

"I'm not here to question what aliens would or wouldn't do to your nipples, man, it was just a theory."

"None of that is correct," Shane says. "No nipple trauma and no aliens in general."

"Fine, theory four, and I personally think this is the most logical option, you're so deeply attracted to me that the mere brush of my hand against your clothed nipple sent you into fits of lust that it took you a moment to control."

Shane chokes on a drink of his beer, and even after he's stopped coughing he won't fully meet Ryan's eyes.

"Dude," Ryan says. "Dude, no way. That one was a joke. I honestly thought that was the most out there one. It was such a joke that I put it after aliens, oh my god, you're in love with me." He's aware he should maybe not be pulling on this particular thread quite as hard as he is, but holy shit. Shane's in love with him.

"I am not in _love_ with you, stop flattering yourself," Shane snaps, but at least he's looking at Ryan again. "I just happen to have very, very sensitive nipples, and you touched them, and it got momentarily weird. But not as weird, I feel compelled to point out, as you obsessing over that moment so much that you came up with several elaborate conspiracy theories about my nipples."

"They weren't that elaborate," Ryan mumbles.

"No really, I'm flattered. Me and my nipples, we're all very flattered," Shane says, and he's joking like he has the upper hand here, but Ryan's not fooled. "Is ‘conspiracy theories’ even the right term? Or were they more like fantasies?"

"Does it matter?" Ryan asks, because Shane's being a bit defensive here, and Ryan can't resist messing with Shane, even at a time like this when he really shouldn’t tempt fate. "Apparently you and your nipples are pretty easy, I'm guessing either way works."

"Hey!" Shane says. "Don't slut-shame me or my nipples!"

"If the slutty shoe fits," Ryan shrugs, grinning. "Can you imagine? Nipples but with little feet? Wearing fancy little heels?" He's not even thinking when he reaches out and pokes at Shane's chest to illustrate his point, it's just instinct to commit to the bit. Unfortunately, his finger actually makes direct contact with one of Shane's nipples like it's a fucked up nipple-seeking finger missile. Shane looks panicked and Ryan definitely _feels_ panicked because Shane has frozen again, his eyes wide and kind of far away, and jesus. He wasn't kidding.

"This can't be a thing," Shane says, his voice strangled. "You can make fun of it all you want for a few days, at least, but you can't just. No touching my nipples. I'm drawing a line. I'm asserting bodily autonomy."

"It was an accident," Ryan says. He's suddenly not so much panicking as he is feeling like shit. "I wasn't trying to, like, _stimulate_ -"

"Oh god, please don't say stimulate."

"Are they really that sensitive?" Ryan doesn't remember telling his brain it was allowed to say that. 

"I would think that the evidence is pretty compelling here, dude," Shane says with a shrug. He's trying to look unaffected, but Ryan can tell he feels weird and awkward because he's hunching over a little. It has the overall effect of making him look like a sulky giant with bad posture. 

"But how did I not know this?"

"I don't know, we don't really spend a lot of our time doing things that bring you in direct contact with my nipples," Shane groans. "Can we just let this drop?"

"Yeah, of course, dude," Ryan says, shaking himself out of it. "Sorry, I really did just want to make sure you were okay with the edit."

"I know," Shane says, visibly relaxing and smiling at him. "I appreciate it, and it's fine. Now rewind the movie, you made us miss the part where Emily Blunt does that really hot push up thing."

"Oh, shit," Ryan says, fumbling for the remote. He's still distracted from the night's nipple-related revelations, but hey. Priorities.

-

Ryan thought he had spent a lot of time thinking about Shane's nipples before, but god. He was a fool. A sweet, summer child worrying about Shane's nipple trauma. It was nothing, nothing compared to the hell he's dealing with now.

"So shirts are okay?" Ryan asks, eating a burrito on autopilot and staring blatantly at Shane's chest. He's wearing a tighter than usual button down today, and it keeps pulling across his chest, enough that the button gaps open, and it's just that if Ryan's nipples were that sensitive he would probably be bothered by it. In a sexy way, maybe. 

"Huh?" Shane asks, pausing with his fork halfway up to his mouth. "I feel like this is one of those times you start a thought in your head and then finish it out loud and expect me to know what you're talking about."

"You know, with your..." Ryan trails off and makes vaguely grabby motions in the general direction of Shane's nipples. "Your _thing_."

"Oh my god," Shane says. "I'm not- we are at _work_."

"We're alone," Ryan says helpfully, gesturing to the empty Unsolved set.

"Oh, that makes it better," Shane says. "Hey Shane, we're all alone here, just you and me, let's talk about your nipples."

"Well when you say it like that it sounds seedy," Ryan says, and he feels vaguely offended. "It's not seedy, I'm just. Curious. In a purely scientific way, of course."

"Of course," Shane says, high pitched the way he can get when he's really incredulous about something Ryan has done or said. He's pretty familiar with the tone.

"It's just that mine don't do that," Ryan says.

"Well I'm sorry that you got the factory standard male nipple and I, along with plenty of other men, by the way, I'm not some weird outlier, got the upgrade," Shane says slowly. "Now can you please get over this?" He sounds frustrated, and he has every right to be.

Ryan realizes that he's being kind of an asshole here. He should respect Shane's wishes and Shane's nipples, it's just that he really hadn't expected this twist. Oh no, now he's thinking of twisting things, and he's looking at Shane's chest speculatively, and Shane is staring back and forth between Ryan and the plastic knife beside his burrito. 

"Look, just answer the question and I'll drop it," Ryan says, none-too-casually pulling his plate closer and putting more distance between Shane and any blunt stabbing instruments.

"Fine, fuck, sometimes, okay? Sometimes I notice it, but I've been inhabiting this here earthly vessel for a while now, and it's not so distracting that I can't deal with it," Shane says.

Ryan puts another mental note into the ongoing file in his brain labeled, " _Shane Madej: Man or Some Dark Entity Sent to Punish Me?_ " that he adds to any time Shane makes a weird comment implying he's some sort of Lovecraftian horror. It's a pretty thick file, but Ryan can't focus on that right now.

"Huh," Ryan says. "Okay, that makes sense."

"Yep. Sure does," Shane says, taking a needlessly aggressive bite of his salad. 

-

"What about the weather?" Ryan asks a few days later when they're freezing their asses off on a night shoot. 

"Huh? It's cold," Shane says, looking up from his phone and down at Ryan with concerned eyes. "You can feel that it's cold, right?" Shane asks slowly. "Is this some new form of hysteria?"

"No, not- I know it's cold," Ryan says, rolling his eyes. They're huddled together by a tiny space heater that's really only heating their ankles while TJ and Mark shoot B-roll.

"So what-"

"You know," Ryan says, staring meaningfully at Shane's chest. "It's cold, my nipples could cut glass and they're not even sensitive, so I figure yours have to be going haywire."

"I hope that ghosts are real," Shane hisses. "I hope they're real and I hope they eat you. I hope they chews ya right up and then they craps ya out and you spend the afterlife as a pile of ghost poop."

"None of that could actually happen-"

"Because ghosts aren't real."

"Because- look, just. I'm just concerned," Ryan says, and it sounds disingenuous even to him.

"No, you've just found something that actually gets a rise of me and now you can't stop yourself," Shane snaps. He's actually a little annoyed, enough that Ryan can tell, and he feels, yet again, like an asshole. 

Shane's right, but not exactly for the reasons he thinks he is. It's not that Ryan's trying to make fun of Shane or anything, it's just that he knows, and now he can't not know, and knowing is doing some weird things to his brain. And maybe his dick, but he's still holding out hope that it was all a coincidence and his brain is confusing Shane's nipple-related revelations with the memory of Emily Blunt's weird sexy push up in his mind. 

"I'm sorry," Ryan says, putting aside his own weird obsession for the sake of filming. Shane being annoyed with him never leads to good things on shoots, and Ryan doesn't want to deal with Shane baiting the ghosts more than he already does. "But if it is an issue," he says as fast as he can before Shane gets really mad, "you can borrow my scarf for extra insulation."

"That's-" Shane tilts his head, giving Ryan a considering look that makes him want to squirm. "That's very sweet, Ryan, but I'm fine," he says, and Ryan nods awkwardly at him, letting out a relieved sigh when Devon whistles and motions them over to film.

-

Ryan's going to let it drop. He's going to let it drop and let it be something that sits in the back of his mind, weirdly torturing him in ways he can't quite process at the moment. Shane has nipples. Sure. Fine, that's normal. They're sensitive, that's normal too, Ryan's starting to suspect he himself is the outlier in this situation. What's torturing Ryan is that he doesn't know _how_ sensitive. 

Shane is his friend. His coworker. His ghost hunting partner. There are any number of reasons Ryan could need to touch his nipples one day, and he'd like to be… respectful? That's a new take on it, he can rationalize this one, he thinks. He wants to be respectful. He wants to know the extent and limits of Shane's overwhelming nipple sensitivity. When it comes down to it, his curiosity is all down to science and a deep sense of personal responsibility to Shane. He's a good friend, and a man of science.

Okay, maybe he still can't rationalize it. 

-

Shane finally calls him on it at maybe the worst possible time. They're on an exceedingly boring overnight in a haunted house that even Ryan can admit is lacking in the spook department. It's going to have to be a history heavy episode that he pads with jokes, because they are getting nothing. He's been in bed with Shane for a while now, pretending like he's going to get any sleep and staring at the general area of Shane's chest in the dark.

Okay fine, maybe the house is a little bit creepy, but it's only by virtue of Ryan being in it, objectifying his friend in his sleep. 

"The house isn't even scary, why are you still awake?" Shane mumbles, and Ryan. Well. He startles, and he yelps, and he almost falls out of the bed and it's only because Shane catches his upper arm and yanks him back that he doesn't. It also means that he ends up landing sprawled over Shane's chest in the dark, and suddenly Ryan is very, very aware of the fact that Shane's nipples are currently pressing against him. He wishes he could feel them, and then he wishes the earth would open up and swallow him, but mostly he wishes that Shane wasn't letting out a weary sigh.

"Ryan, man, seriously?" 

"You startled me."

"I know. What I don't know is why you're still on top of me, except that I do know, and I thought we were over this." Shane's speaking in a very measured tone and Ryan is very aware of the camera still recording the bed. He glances over at it and Shane seems to remember it all at once, and then he's gently pushing Ryan off of him and getting out of the bed. 

Ryan squeezes his eyes shut and starts thinking of how he's going to explain to the crew that Shane walked right out of the house in his pajamas and left in the dead of night, never to be seen again all because Ryan was a giant, nipple-obsessed freak, when the bed dips beside him. 

"Okay," Shane says. "Camera’s off, lamp's on, nipples out, let's get this the fuck out of your system."

"I- _what_ ," Ryan asks, and he blinks his eyes open and there's Shane, spread out on the bed with his arms behind his head and his shirt off, looking at Ryan expectantly.

"Well don't wimp out now, big boy," Shane says, raising an eyebrow at him. "This is the culmination of months of your wildest and most detailed sexual fantasies about my nipples, so saddle on up, cowboy, and- _fuck_ , what are you doing?"

Shane breaks off with a gasp, and Ryan freezes where his fingers are very much squeezing at Shane's right nipple.

"I um- you told me to?" Ryan blurts. He's confused about a lot of things right now, but Shane's reaction is the easiest one to focus on.

"You know," Shane says, his voice strained. "I did? But I honestly didn't think this was going to be your reaction. I figured your heterosexuality was going to win the fight with whatever flight of nipple fancy you've had going on." He's squirming, is the thing, and the lamp doesn't provide a ton of light but Ryan can see that he's flushing, just enough that he wouldn't have known if he wasn't looking for it.

"Yeah, I- I think I passed any sexuality issues a few months ago when it came to this, and it's a little insulting that you would assume I'd freak out."

"Hey, no offense intended," Shane says. " _I'm_ freaking out about this, happens to the best and most sexually-fluid among us. You're still, uh. You're still touching me."

"I sure am," Ryan says, because he's been pretty distracted this entire time by the way Shane's nipple hardened under his fingers, the way his skin drew up tight and he started breathing a little harsher. "So this is enough? Just this?" He squeezes, to emphasize his point, is all, and Shane huffs out a breath.

"What do you mean by enough?" Shane grits out. "If you mean is someone pinching my notedly sensitive nipples out of the blue enough to be an issue for me, then yes."

Ryan swallows, and does his level best not to stare at Shane's pajama pants to see if they're talking about the same kind of enough.

"I'm not pinching," he says instead. "This is barely a touch." He feels a bit like he's having an out of body experience as he deliberately tightens his grip and watches Shane's stomach jump as his head falls back into the pillows. "This is pinching."

"Sure is," Shane gasps out, and Ryan lightens up his touch and shifts closer to Shane on the bed, and that is right around the time that he realizes he is truly and desperately hard in his pants, and he figures there's nothing left to lose so he lets his eyes roam down Shane's body and hey, would you look at that. Here they are, mutually erect in a bed where someone may or may not have been murdered. 

Ryan has his doubts, he’s barely even felt creeped out and by everything he’d researched the place is just a historic bed and breakfast trying to sell a spooky history, but still. Several people died of natural causes. It’s still strange to have his hand on Shane’s nipple here. The night's taken a weird turn.

"I have a confession," Ryan says, because he might as well go for broke here while Shane isn't telling him to stop. "I think this may have moved past the point of scientific curiosity."

"It never was, you do realize that, right?" Shane asks, his voice coming out much rougher than it was a moment ago. "Ryan, you doofus, you do understand that you're into this sexually and not scientifically and that I am also into this very, very sexually, right?" He's full on flushed down to his chest now, his hands twisted tight into the blankets, and his skin is so pink.

"Starting to get that, yeah," Ryan says. 

"Okay," Shane says. "Okay, so. If you keep… if you're going to indulge your scientific curiosity, which is a really weird name for your dick, by the way, I need to be very clear that I'm probably going to come relatively soon if you don't ease the fuck up for a minute, so there's your warning. Last chance to back out." 

His voice is shaky by the end, and Ryan is so turned on at the thought of Shane coming in his pants just from this, just from Ryan's fingers on his fucking nipples, that he feels dizzy.

"Thanks for the warning," Ryan says, pulling his hand back from Shane's chest, and Shane lets out a sound that's halfway between relief and disappointment that turns into a full on moan when Ryan leans down and licks over his nipple. It's so hard against Ryan's tongue, and Shane lets go of the blankets and grabs onto Ryan's shoulders as his body curls up under Ryan's mouth. 

"Fuck," Shane gasps out, and this close to his chest Ryan can hear how fast his heart is pounding, feel the heat of the flush on his chest and the rapid rise and fall of his breathing, and he closes his lips and sucks. Shane's hips jerk up, and Ryan has to reach down and palm himself through his pants just to try to maintain some sense of control as Shane loses his. 

"Is that more than just the touching?" Ryan asks. He pulls his mouth away reluctantly because he's been thinking about this long enough that he doesn't want it to be over too soon because Shane's nipples are connected directly to his dick, no matter how hot that is. 

"Yes," Shane pants. "Significantly."

"Huh," Ryan says, and he's trying to slow things down but he can't stop staring at Shane's nipple, flushed pink and hard and still wet from Ryan's mouth, and that is so fucking hot in a way that Ryan hadn't anticipated, no matter how much he'd thought about this abstractly. 

"Mine just don't do that," he says, and he idly reaches up to yank his shirt off, brushing his fingers over them. He barely registers the touch, much less gets turned on from it, but that might just be because he’s already reached maximum levels of turned on.

"Any excuse, huh?" Shane says, but Ryan's so distracted that he can't even get annoyed at the tired joke. 

"It's crazy," he mutters, reaching out to lightly trail his fingers over Shane's nipples and watch him squirm. 

"Everything about this is crazy," Shane says, which, yeah. A fair point.

"So you can come just from this?" Ryan asks, his fingers gripping onto the nipple he hadn't touched yet. "Just from someone touching them?"

"Theoretically," Shane says, his chest arching up into Ryan's touch, and fuck. Ryan thinks that he might be in the middle of feeling what it feels like to develop a very particular kink. Every single thing about it is hot in ways he was not expecting, and the hottest part is that it's Shane, which is the thing Ryan had been trying his very best not to think too hard about. He's so lost in his own personal growth and the realization of his annoyingly obvious feelings for Shane that it takes him a second to process what Shane said.

"What do you mean theoretically?" he asks. "I thought you said you were going to come, if I kept touching them?" Shane's eyes blink closed at that, and Ryan takes the opportunity to grin to himself at the reaction. If Shane likes talking, Ryan can talk.

"Usually," Shane says, his voice measured, "usually when someone is touching them, it's part of some other activity of a lurid and sexual nature, but yeah. It's a big factor."

"Now who's being a doofus?" Ryan asks. 

"What do you mean?"

"This is definitely an activity of a sexual nature, didn’t we just establish that?" Ryan says. "Lurid is in the eye of the beholder, I guess, but I'm not hard because this is casual nipple play between bros, or whatever. Doofus," he adds again for good measure.

"Huh," Shane says. "If only your brain was as adaptable as your sexuality I would win way more arguments." 

Ryan figures it's a good a time as any to shut him up, so he leans down and licks over Shane's nipples again, one after the other as Shane gasps and arches beneath him. When Ryan kisses at the left one before sucking it into his mouth, Shane grabs onto his head and holds him there, and he's fucking _writhing_ under Ryan now. 

"Like that?" Ryan asks, pulling back just enough that he can speak. "Do you like it harder?"

"Fuck," Shane gasps in response, which isn't particularly helpful but is particularly hot, so Ryan figures he can learn by doing and drops his mouth back down, wrapping his lips around Shane's skin and sucking hard this time, and Shane's grip in his hair tightens almost painfully as he jerks beneath Ryan's mouth. 

"Gonna take that as a yes," he mumbles as he kisses his way across Shane's chest to his other nipple, and Shane hisses when he licks at it. "You okay?"

"Sensitive," Shane shrugs, laughing a little and seeming much more present now that Ryan's not touching him. "It's kind of sore from earlier, but in a good way." 

"Yeah?" he asks, pulling back to drag his fingers over it, so light that it would be an infuriating tease if it were him, but Shane lets out a shaky breath and lets his head fall back, easing his grip on Ryan's hair to run his fingers through it instead, and Ryan's own eyes blink shut at that. It's easy to ignore how hard he is when he's focusing on Shane, but the second he stops it all comes rushing back at once. 

Time to distract himself. He climbs out of bed and ignores Shane's confused noise, standing at the end of the bed and reaching up to grab Shane's pajama pants and pull them off down his unnecessarily long legs. 

"There is no reason," he says, "to be this tall." Then he stops talking at all because oh, there's Shane’s cock. He'd just been right there, sleeping next to Ryan without any underwear on. 

"You brazen hussy," he says, raising an eyebrow when Shane blinks his eyes open. 

"I had designs on your virtue," Shane says, putting on a slow drawl. "I was going to rob you of it right in this here romantic murder house."

"Forgot to pack underwear?"

"Yup." Shane smirks at him and reaches down to give himself a lazy stroke. Ryan honestly doesn't know what comes over him when he reaches out and grabs Shane's hand.

"Don't touch," he says, and suddenly the teasing that had made everything feel almost normal, or as normal as things could be when he was staring directly at Shane's dick, is over. 

" _Ryan_ ," Shane groans. He thinks that Shane's going for frustrated but it comes out as a whine, and that is, wow. That's working for him, like everything else is working for him. He crawls back up the long line of Shane's body on the bed. 

"Shh," he says. "We're doing a scientific experiment, remember? Don't ruin the control."

"The control is my dick?" Shane laughs breathlessly when Ryan settles over him, his hand coming back up to Shane's chest like it's magnetized and his fingers skimming over Shane's nipples in soft strokes. 

"I don't actually know, the whole science thing is a sham, the point is that I'm going to make you come just from touching your nipples," he informs Shane, matter-of-fact, and then he leans down and scrapes his teeth over the left one. He's glad he got on top of Shane, because Shane jerks up immediately, his hands flying back to Ryan's head and his dick hard and wet where it drags against Ryan's stomach. It's reminding him of a theme park ride, but like, a _sexy_ one.

"That good?" he asks, trailing his mouth up to Shane's ear. He doesn't want to get too rough if that's not what Shane actually wants, but, well. He feels like he's got a pretty good idea of what Shane wants when Shane frantically nods his head and drags Ryan's mouth to his other nipple. 

"Yeah," Shane says. "That's good," and this time his reaction is even more intense, his nipple already flushed from earlier, and Shane's starting to shake beneath him. 

"Should have known you'd be a talker," Shane grits out, and Ryan nips at him again when Shane tries to grind up against him. 

"Should have known you'd be into it," Ryan says, and he sits up slides down Shane's thighs so he can _see_. Shane's nipples are red and swollen, and Shane's a sweaty, fucked out mess against the pillows, hair going in about ten directions at once. It's a good look for him, and Ryan reaches up and rolls his fingers over both of Shane's nipples at once, watching as his cock jerks where it's resting heavy and wet against his stomach.

"Fuck, that's hot," Ryan says, and he's actually not a talker, not usually, but he can't seem to stop himself from keeping up a running commentary as he tightens his fingers around Shane's nipples. "I knew you were sensitive, but fucking look at you, your dick jerks every time I touch them. Do you have any idea how long I spent thinking about just how sensitive you were, about what it would take to make you come? You gonna come, Shane?"

Shane sits up suddenly, almost bucking Ryan off, and reaches for his hair again. Ryan's expecting Shane to push his head back down to his chest, but instead he tugs Ryan into a kiss. It’s an awful kiss, but also maybe the hottest one of Ryan’s life, because Shane is panting and biting at his bottom lip desperately, and when Ryan's fingers tighten on Shane's nipples in response he goes with it, goes with it and tugs. Shane cries out against his mouth and comes, wet and hot between them.

"I wanted to see," Ryan says stupidly, and Shane huffs out a laugh against his mouth and reaches up to grab Ryan's wrists, pulling his fingers away. He's shivering when he falls back against the pillows, throwing an arm over his eyes, and he's still laughing but it might be edging more toward the hysterical side of things.

"Are you freaking out?" Ryan asks, pulling Shane's arm away from his face so he can see exactly how badly he may have fucked things up. He can be a stoic guy, but Shane's actually a pretty shitty liar once you know him well enough.

"Little bit," Shane says. "But also I'm waiting for the other freaked-out shoe to drop because I really want to touch your dick but don't want you to get weird about it."

"Oh," Ryan says. "Yeah, that's not gonna be a problem, I just don't know if you have time."

"What?" Shane asks, blinking up at him. "It's still the middle of the night, we have plenty of-"

Ryan shoves his pants and underwear down, wraps a hand around his cock, and comes all over Shane's stomach before Shane can even finish the question. It's one of the most intense orgasms he's ever had, and he hisses when Shane reaches out to touch him anyway, wrapping his big hand around Ryan's cock and jerking him off until Ryan's the one squirming. 

"Too much," he gasps, reaching to still Shane's hand, and Shane raises an eyebrow at him like Ryan's not aware of the irony, but he lets go anyway and drags him down against his chest. He hisses when Ryan makes contact with his chest, and Ryan tries to ignore the weak throb his dick gives at that. 

"Sorry," Ryan offers. He is not.

"No you're not," Shane says sleepily, his lips brushing against Ryan's ear. 

"Are you?" Ryan asks, glad that he's got his face buried in Shane's neck. 

"Nah," Shane says, and Ryan appreciates the long strokes of Shane's hand up and down his spine, even if they're both disgusting. "I figure best case scenario we get to do this again, worst case you stop ambushing me with questions about my nipples at inopportune times and maybe quit eye-fucking me constantly so I can actually get things done without being distracted by my dick all day.

"I was _not_ -"

"Dude, c'mon. Own up to your shit and I won't make you walk to the bathroom alone. Do you really want to get post-coitally murdered by a ghost? You'd be a naked, jizz-covered ghost for the rest of eternity, by your logic. That'd be awkward."

"Heh," Ryan giggles. "I'd be like Slimer. Get it, because-"

"I get it," Shane says, and Ryan can hear the eye roll in his voice but Shane also presses a kiss to his temple, so it evens out. "But you're not going to distract me with your ectoplasm, buddy, not again."

"Fine," Ryan sighs. "I was maybe, possibly, a _little_ bit preoccupied with the whole nipple thing."

"See? Now was that so hard?" Shane asks.

“I mean, nowhere near as hard as your nipples,” Ryan says. “That’s so weird, when you think about it. Like two little dicks on your chest.”

“You’re ruining the post-coital mood, my dude,” Shane says, swatting Ryan’s hand away when he mimes jerking off Shane’s nipples. “Hands off the nerps.”

“Stop calling them nerps, that’s part of what got us here in the first place. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve read the word nipple over the past few months? Not as many times as I’ve thought it, but still. The more you read that word, the less real it looks.”

“I _knew_ you didn’t know what a supernumerary nipple was on your own,” Shane says. “I knew it, Bergara.”

He sounds insufferably smug but Ryan just shrugs and leans up to kiss him. It’s in part an effort to distract Shane from getting too lost delighting in the greatest hits of Ryan’s dumbness, but Shane kisses him back deep and slow and it’s so distracting that Ryan gets lost in it and forgets to make what was going to be another very hilarious nipples-as-dicks joke. Oh well. Can’t win ‘em all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [beethechange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beethechange) for the beta, sorry I made you read the word nipple so many times.
> 
> Trying my very best not to turn this into a series where Ryan becomes obsessed with Shane's various psycho-sexual threats toward ghosts, but the heart wants what it wants. 
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](https://aspookycryptidsock.tumblr.com), if that's your thing.


End file.
